Cameroon is Fun

It's fun watching the people run from the scary juju... Reese included.





Pre-gaming for the jujus.




Bowing to greet the Fon...





A little embarrassed having prostrated in front of so many notables... running back from greeting the Fon.


Jill showed up in Douala after very nearly not making her plane in New York some 20 hours before (her roommates boyfriend locked her out of her apartment and she left her yellow WHO vaccination card in her car in New Jersey). I had had a beer and was elatedly watching the planes land (its not something we see every day in Cameroon). The next day we made the 11 hour trip back to Bafut (it shouldn’t be 11 hours, but it was good that Jill was able to get a taste of the transport woes).

Yesterday, we were fortunate enough to have been invited to an enormous Bafut death celebration. The Fon of Mankaninkon, a village on the way to my old home of Akofunguba, had died years before and they were officially installing his son as the new chief. The paramount Fon of Bafut was there, all the jujus and other notables, queens and about 1000 of Bafut’s population. We drank beer and were seated front-row for the festivities. Rains disturbed a bit, but we were able to see the mean juju (the one with the dark helmet made of dead African’s hair) accept his goat-bait at a distance that hardly seemed safe.

Jill’s impression of the event yesterday: “I thought the juju was going to get me. I just felt bad for the goat. They kept body slamming it… like WWF.”